Pretoria — Oscar Pistorius pleaded not guilty to murder on Monday as his sensational trial got under way 90 minutes after officials tried to locate an Afrikaans interpreter at the last minute.

But the late start was also due to another bid by a woman who also disrupted the Paralympian's bail hearing to bring an application to the North Gauteng High Court.

The mysterious woman, who gave her name only as Anna-Marie and claimed she knew Pistorius's late mother, was led out of the building just before 11 am.

Court officials then explained they had also managed to resolve logistical problems related to translation services for the trial --reportedly because one of the witnesses wanted to testify in Afrikaans.

Proceedings in the Pretoria court finally began at 11.30 am, with prosecutor Gerrie Nel formally bringing a charge of premeditated murder.

Asked to plead, Pistorius, 27, responded: "Not guilty."

The prosecutor and a team of senior detectives will set out to prove in coming weeks that Pistorius deliberately shot and killed his model girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp while she cowered behind a locked toilet door in his home on Valentine's Day last year.

Nel proceeded to read further charges relating to contravention of the firearms act, some relating to a now infamous incident in a restaurant in Melrose Arch months before Steenkamp's death.

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